Category Archives: Musicology

One way or…not another…

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I recently got into quite a heated dialogue with a former colleague of mine about my “career path.” In brief, he didn’t approve of my decision to no longer pursue the “stay-in-school-until-I-get-my-doctorate-then-hope-to-land-a-job-at-a-top-tier-university” trek. What made this conversation unfortunate was that even though I already do have one advanced degree – and a job! – lined up for the Fall semester, it still appeared as if I were simply wasting my time with pointless distraction.

I tried explaining that I wanted to take a year to practice what I truly want to practice, research and write about what grabs me, and teach something I consider very important. I may not be saving lives or setting records, but I feel fortunate that at this point in my career (and this economy!) I’m able to find work in my chosen area, and able to cultivate my own niche. And that’s just as valuable of a learning experience as a year of school.

Observers & Participants

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A former colleague of mine is researching local musicians of a particular genre for her thesis- we’ll say jazz, for the sake of anonymity. While this person is delving into the scholarship surrounding various local jazz cultures, etc., she, in general, doesn’t follow much jazz overall. That is to say, while the interest on a local level is there, the interest and appreciation for the canon as a whole is lacking. What does this suggest? A few possible reasons could be:

1. Academic scholarship often doesn’t suggest a strong level of personal interest in a given topic.
2. The desire to be involved in a “scene” or local celebrity.
3. Having a personal connection to the subjects outweighs the actual product (music, in this case).
4. The notion that by having a deep “micro” knowledge one needn’t be concerned with the macro.
5. By not doing (i.e., playing jazz herself), immersing and surrounding herself with doers makes her a de facto participant.

By no means is this an exhaustive list, but these are the first the come to mind. (Of course, I’m also speaking from personal experience and interaction with this individual.) I’m only using this person as a particular example, as this is something I see as a larger troubling trend. In graduate school, I noticed a number of colleagues choosing thesis and “doctoral document” (a peculiar item in music studies) topics almost by chance. It was “Hey, that’s neat” as opposed to “This is something I want to champion.” (It wasn’t unusual for the former reason to eventually transform into the latter, but not in all cases.)

My greatest concern regarding this issue is that “scholars” may sometimes be more observers than participants, or tryers rather than doers. If so, how can this be? If one is going to immerse oneself in jazz, wouldn’t that also suggest a participation in the performance of it? As a close friend and colleague of mine, Matt Borghi, often says, “It ain’t that deep.” Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it is. At any rate, how would one know without doing (at least on some basic level)? In an earlier post, I mentioned an academic analysis of The Rolling Stones and their supposed capitalist undermining of their working-class message. Maybe it isn’t that deep. Maybe their working-class roots and interest in American blues gave them a solid grounding that transcends whatever commercial success they’ve since experienced.

Often when performing I’m more concerned with the music feeling and sounding good than I am with trying to convey some abstract message. Other times I’m not. The point is, I know that because I’m on stage doing it, and not in the audience (or even backstage) simply making an educated guess. I know from experience, which is really the best research one can do.

Musicology

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In rehearsal with The Elevator Conspiracy a few months ago, we were mulling over one of our songs’ lyrics. Our singer at the time wanted to change them, but another member who helped to co-write the lyrics didn’t want them altered. The reason for maintaining the text was that by preserving the narrative, which was about a romantic connection, we would preserve the entire piece’s integrity, as the instrumental solos represented the release of the tension that built up throughout the story. By changing the text, we would therefore make the solos nonsensical in relation to the rest of the piece. Without thinking about it, I immediately broke out laughing, as did the rest of the group (save the defender of this argument), as all of this was news to us (who all helped to develop the song from its original fragment). My response, which was mostly met with agreement, was, “I think the solos make perfect musical sense where they are, regardless of lyrical content. It just sounds right.”

I was very thankful for this episode (despite the argument that followed), as it provided me with a perfect anecdote for my frustrations with Musicology. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I completed most of a musicology degree, but decided not to finish for a variety of reasons. While I was doing well in my coursework and diligently studying/researching, I gradually became less and less invested in the project (which, at its, core, I still very much champion). And, having eventually become at odds with my advisor and department, I decided it would be best to walk away and wash my hands of it (as opposed to picking another topic and starting from scratch), as my thesis was becoming something I wouldn’t be interested in reading, let along writing, and nothing I’d attach my name to to shop around for publication or doctoral work. That being said, I still have a deep appreciation for the field in general, and am pursuing my interests independently (for now), separate from academia.

My main musicological interests are American popular music, jazz since the 1960s, music and politics, and Wagner. Specifically, my primary topic of interest (and my thesis topic) is the Dave Matthews Band, and its unique place in contemporary popular culture as a commercial juggernaut as well as simultaneously being one of the most successful jam bands since The Grateful Dead. (This is a topic I’ve devoted a lot of time to already, and it will definitely be popping up again at some point.) “Popular Musicology,” as it’s now known, deals with popular music and is still pretty much in its infancy, dealing primarily with “the originals” (e.g., The Beatles, Pink Floyd) or highly controversial subjects such as Madonna. Because it’s not yet fully accepted by the musicology community at large, popular musicology often incorporates other disciplines to help prop it up. (This is because most musicologists, along with many popular musicologists to an extent, find the technical aspects of popular music far simpler than classical music, and therefore unable to focus primarily on the music. I take GREAT issue with this.)

Though I find incorporations of diverse disciplines healthy, it must be done in moderation. I read a number of works that decided to take a Marxist look at rock music, and some of the findings just gave me a headache from the constant rolling of my eyes. Rarely did I happen upon musical discourse. Instead, authors would often discuss everything but the music in an effort to make sense of it. For instance (briefly), are The Rolling Stones really an expression of capitalist control because their songs express false working-class sentiments? Or, could it be that their modest roots, along with their love of American blues and rhythm and blues have shaped their musical career more than any later success could? Going back to my original anecdote, I tend to think that musicology, more often than not, is averse to Ockham’s Razor. (“New Musicologists” Robert Walser and Susan McClary grapple this concept well in their article “Start Making Sense!: Musicology Wrestles With Rock,” from On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word [Frith and Good, 1990].)

TOOL, one of my top five all-time favorites, hit the nail on the head with their lyrics from “Lateralus”: “Over-thinking [and] over-analyzing separates the body from the mind.” In this case, reading too much into music intellectually can actually dilute the music itself.